by T. E. Woods
“Eventually, of course, a custodian arrived to lock up.” He inhaled deeply, re-living the next moment. “She turned to me and thanked me for staying with her. ‘You were kind to sit with me’ she said. I don’t know what possessed me. I asked her if she would care for a glass of sherry. Perhaps we could discuss the piece. She agreed.”
Childress brushed a piece of lint off his grey woolen trousers. “As I said, what I thought was a random encounter of two kindred souls was actually a well-choreographed plan. Savannah was hired to meet me, seduce me, gain my confidence, and co-opt me into agreeing with the faculty overthrow of Bastian.” He smiled. “But of course something else entirely happened.”
Lydia braced herself for his next statement.
“We fell in love,” he said. “We’ve been nearly inseparable since. She changed me somehow. Melted me. I came to see the kind of man I’d become. In me I think she found the genuine love she craved. She knew I would die before hurting her. She told me I was her home.” He took a deep breath. “I met with the faculty trio. They didn’t have to sell me. I knew more of Bastian’s evil than they did and Savannah’s love gave me the courage to follow through. We developed a plan. I’d help arrange meetings with other faculty members and make sure Bastian remained ignorant. They’d get their no-confidence vote from the faculty. He’d have no time to devise a counter-attack. Surely, he’d resign to save face. I’d step in as Interim Chair and we’d purge the department of the oppressive stench in which Bastian had it wrapped.”
“And you, of course, would seek the position of Chairman permanently.” Lydia knew men like Childress better than to think he’d had an altruistic epiphany. There’d be a payoff promised.
He grinned like the school boy he was afraid he was portraying. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Dr. Corriger. I agreed to stay on as Interim only until we could elect a new chairman. In fact, it was our plan to leave the university.”
“Our?” she asked.
He looked over his shoulder to Savannah. “I have a bit of money saved. A bachelor has few expenses. As it turns out, Savannah is quite wealthy. We promised each other a fresh start. Together. A small fishing village in Maine. I’d write and she would learn to play the piano.” A tear dropped onto his sweater. “A simple life. For as long as it lasted.”
Lydia felt a pull of sadness for the woman little Greta had become and the pitiful man who loved her. “So why are we in this intensive care cubicle? What went wrong?”
He blinked his eyes clear. “The faculty plan worked as intended, of course. Bastian was blindsided. Eviscerated. Powerless.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Unfortunately, he chose that very night to have his heart attack. That was the beginning of the road that led us here. Savannah felt responsible. That the meeting had somehow brought on his attack. No amount of logic could dissuade her. She couldn’t get over the coincidence of his dying on the day our plan was executed. She began to fall apart. Little things at first. Her mind would wander. She took less care of herself. I begged her to return to you but she would just repeat her idea that she was broken and no one could fix her. That she’d sinned and Bastian’s heart attack was a sign of the punishment that awaited her.”
Childress didn’t try to stop the tears. “And then that graduate student was murdered. Do you remember reading about that?”
Lydia’s pulse quickened. “Yes. What does he have to do with Savannah?”
“She became obsessed his death was her fault, too.” He looked up at Lydia. “I suppose someone in your profession would call it paranoia or even psychosis, but she got herself into such a state. She wasn’t eating. She never slept. I tried to tell her it was an unfortunate coincidence. A random act of violence. But she grew evermore certain there was a connection between the two deaths and that the sins of her past somehow caused both men to die.”
Lydia leaned in. “Were Bastian and the student connected in any way?”
Childress gave a bewildered shake of his head. “Bastian was head of Neuroscience. The student, Buchner was his name. Walter Buchner. A nothing. A second year graduate research assistant. Audiology as I recall. No connection whatsoever.” He raised his hands in frustration. “But there was no convincing her. I think her concerns over the deaths of Bastian and that poor boy rendered her too vulnerable for the news we received recently. It was too much for my fragile darling.”
“What news was that?”
Childress gave her a baffled stare. “You don’t know?” He stared back at his fiance. “I begged her to call you. She was so upset.”
Lydia flashed upon Savannah leaving her office. “Tell me what happened.”
He leaned back in his chair, breathed a heavy sigh, and caressed Savannah’s hand. “Savannah is HIV+, Dr. Corriger. A work-related condition, you could say. She informed me not long after we met; when we realized things were serious between us. She told me she never gave it a second thought. That for years she welcomed the death she knew would come soon. She didn’t know which of the many ‘special projects’ had infected her. She said she assumed it was divine justice for the life she led.”
Childress smiled at the woman on the bed. “But that changed when we fell in love.” He looked up at Lydia. “She sought treatment for the first time. She began taking care of herself; even travelling to Italy to learn about a new intervention.”
Lydia remembered Savannah’s explanation for the seven weeks between her first and second appointment with her. She said she’d been someplace warm on a business-related trip.
“She adhered religiously to her medication regimen,” Childress continued. “Her doctors told her she had every reason to be optimistic. HIV is no longer a death sentence, you understand.”
Lydia nodded. She was stunned at what she didn’t know about Greta/Savannah.
“But her optimism died with the news.” A tear slid down his cheek. “Despite how careful we were in our affection, I learned yesterday that I’d become infected myself.” He brought Savannah’s hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. “I told her it didn’t matter. That I’d pay any price for the man I’d become as a result of her love. We’d enjoy our life in Maine for as long as we were given breath. We’d be together. But the agony of guilt consumed her. I begged her to call you. She said her shame was too large. She wanted you to remember her as she once was.” He turned his rheumy eyes to Lydia. His shoulders shook as he cried out. “But she made one last visit to your office porch. Why, Dr. Corriger? Why did she do it?”
Lydia told him she had no answer. She offered her sympathy and her support and sat with him as he cried. Still, she needed one more question answered. “Where were you when you found out about Buchner’s death?”
Her question stopped his tears. “Me?” He gave her a befuddled stare. “I was at my home, of course. It was on the news the morning after his murder.”
“Was Savannah with you?”
The look on his face signaled he wasn’t following her logic. “No. She was away for a few days. She’d gone to Maine to find us a house. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Childress. Like you, I’m trying to make sense of things.”
The Fixer sat with the desolate man and his comatose beauty a few minutes longer. She rose, reiterated her sorrow, and promised to return. She walked out of the ICU, headed for her car, and cried for innocent little Greta.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I’m having a deja vu experience, Mort.” Jim DeVilla, Chief of Forensics for the Seattle Police Department, stood in Walter Buchner’s kitchen as his team searched the crime scene for the second time in nine days. “You got anything in mind or are we just fishing?” Jim scratched the ears of the eighty-five pound German Shepherd sitting beside him.
Mort opened the freezer and eyed the contents. He pulled out a half-eaten container of ice cream and frowned. “Man, wouldn’t it be easy if we found a ball of cash or two inches of blow instead of half a pint of Cherry Garcia?” He slammed the freezer door shut. “There’s got to b
e something.”
De Villa called out to the two women re-dusting the living room for prints. “You hear that? We highly-paid investigative types will continue to stand here with our thumbs up our asses while you diligent forensic officers re-do what you did last week. Make sure to give us a shout if you run across, wait a minute.” He turned toward Mort. “What was it you said you were looking for, Detective? Oh, that’s right. ‘Something’. Officers, make sure you let us know if you find ‘something’.”
The two women responded with stifled grins. Mort walked past them into Buchner’s bedroom. De Villa followed, his canine shadow matching step-for-step. They stood at the foot of the unmade bed. Mort, hands on hips, surveyed the room while De Villa rocked on his heels and Bruiser sat at attention.
“We’re missing it, Jimmy. Buchner was Joe Average. No record. No tickets. Look at this place. It’s a dump. The only thing worth stealing is his laptop and that fancy recording gear in the front room.”
De Villa flipped through his notebook. “Buchner was a research geek in audiology. According to his co-workers, he was working on something to do with voice synthesizing. Cutting edge stuff and all that bullshit.” De Villa closed his notebook and slipped it back into his pocket. “That’s what the world needs. More talking.” De Villa reached down and tousled the shepherd’s rough fur around the scar from a bullet that had ripped apart Bruiser’s throat when he leaped in front of an undercover cop to save him from a drug dealer’s deadly intent. “Maybe we could hook you up, huh, Buddy? I sure would love to hear you bark again.” De Villa looked up at Mort. “University wants to know when they can pick the stuff up. I guess it’s worth more than you and I make in any given year combined.”
“That’s just it.” Mort turned to the man he’d trusted with evidence for more than a quarter century. “That fancy tape recorder’s still here.”
“Voice synthesizer,” De Villa said.
“What-the-fuck-ever. It’s here, not in some pawn shop. No forced entry. Nothing gone.” Mort took another look around Buchner’s room. “But Average Joes don’t get their faces blown off. You get anything off his background?”
De Villa shrugged. “Hard working boy genius type. Paid enough to live in this palatial splendor. A little more than two hundred in his savings account. Less in his checking. Sent twenty buck’s a month to the humane society, I thought that was nice. Car’s eleven years old. No girlfriends. No boyfriends, either. According to everybody he knew Buchner went to work, excelled at it, then came home. Occasionally he’d meet his cronies for pizza and beers.”
“What do we know about these cronies?” Mort asked.
“Same as Dead Old Wally. Nerds and geeks. A little beer, a little marijuana. Nothing to crank up the sirens about.”
“What about his folks?”
De Villa sighed and pulled the notebook back out of his pocket. He flipped through it and read. “Greg and Dana Buchner. Of the Walla Walla Buchners. Both fifty-seven years old.” He looked up from his notebook. “Hard to believe folks our age got kids in grad school, huh? Enough to make a fella feel old.”
“What do we know about the Buchners?” he asked.
“Greg’s a high school principal. Dana owns a fitness studio. Pillar of the community types. Wally’s their only child. They were in Australia chaperoning a group of students when they got the news.” De Villa’s voice softened. “Fuck. I can’t imagine what they’re going through.”
An image of Allie at four flashed through Mort’s mind. Twirling across the living room in her pink tutu. Mud half-way up her white tights from a puddle she found irresistible. Edie applauding. Allie holding up her arms for a dance with Daddy. A call from the other room pulled him back.
“Micki’s here.”
The two men and Bruiser left Buchner’s bedroom. Micki Petty stood in the living room, speaking with the forensic team. Mort smiled. Everyone did when they saw Micki. She was five feet five of no-nonsense cute. Thirty-two years old. Light brown hair streaked with gold and red. Blue eyes and a dusting of freckles across her nose. Exhibit A that not all techies are social misfits.
Mort met Micki when she was fifteen. Her best friend Jodi had left Micki’s house the morning after a sleep-over, running home to be on time for Sunday school. When Jodi’s parents called an hour later wondering where their daughter was, Micki went looking. She found her friend in a ditch, bloodied and broken. Mort remembered the resolute young Micki answering his questions through her tears and her tireless vigil during Jodi’s hospital stay. She displayed an endless curiosity about police work and Mort arranged a few ride-alongs with uniforms on routine day patrol. When Mort arrested the drunk who ran Jodi down, Micki convinced her friend to testify. “If there’s something we can do to stop the bad guys, Jodi, we gotta. We just gotta.”
Micki never missed a day of the trial and was fascinated by the trail of paint chips, tire treads, and time lines that led to a conviction and twelve year prison sentence. “It’s like putting a puzzle together, isn’t it?” They stayed in touch through the years and Mort teared up when he pinned on Micki’s badge the day she and Jodi graduated from the police academy. Nineteen months later Jodi walked up to a car she pulled over a car for a busted tail light and was shot in the face. At the funeral Micki told Mort she wanted in on the investigation. “I don’t have the seniority, but this guy’s mine.” He made significant withdrawals from his chits account and got her transferred. Ten years later she was still the best detective he ever supervised.
Micki walked toward Mort and Jimmy and signaled for Bruiser. She bent to one knee and ran her hands across the shepherd’s coat, cooing sweet nothings into the lovesick dog’s ear. She stood and pointed her briefcase in the direction of a small table. “You boys want to sit?”
Jim asked his forensic team if they were done in the kitchen. They were and he headed in ahead of Mort and Micki. He moved the toaster, pizza box, and seven soda cans covering the table. He pulled out a chair, brushed the grey residue of fingerprint powder off the seat, and offered it to Micki. Mort shook his head and smiled at a memory. Edie telling him one of the main differences between men and women is that women knew they looked stupid when they went gaga over someone twenty years younger.
Micki took a seat and pulled a folder from her briefcase. Mort sat across and Jim pulled his chair beside her. Bruiser settled in under the table, his giant head resting on her feet.
“What’ve you got for us, Mack?” Mort asked.
“I examined Buchner’s laptop. His computer at the university, too. Still waiting for the phone company to come up with his cell records. Desk sergeant told me you two were here so I decided to swing by.” She shifted her gaze between the two of them. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay.” De Villa looked at Mort. Then back at Micki. “It’s always okay.”
Mort saw the two women in the living room smile and shake their heads.
“And so I repeat, what did you find?” Mort asked.
Micki flipped open the folder. “Most of the stuff is pretty routine. Lots of drafts of schematics for various electronics. Research articles he’s writing.” She ran her hand down the inventory list. Mort noticed a smudged stamp from a waterfront nightclub just above her thumb and hoped she was developing a life outside the precinct. “Outlines for classes he’s teaching. Student lists. Grades. Typical stuff.”
“How about e-mails?” Mort asked.
Micki shook her head. “Nothing unusual there, either. Mostly business. Lots to his parents. A couple of exchanges with someone named Aubree about a year ago. Sounded like a blind date thing. Finally arranged to meet at a bookstore. One last note from Aubree the next day giving him the brush off.”
“Poor Wally,” De Villa said. “You know I read somewhere that over fifty percent of people meet their true love at work. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Friends first, shared interest, common social circle. That make sense to you, Micki?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Jimmy.” Mort l
eaned back in his chair. “You want me to see what Disney’s got on? You could watch while the grown-ups get back to work?”
Micki looked down at the file and ate a grin.
“What about the internet?” Mort asked.
“Those searches proved more interesting.” Micki turned to the third sheet of her report.
De Villa’s voice dropped an octave. “Porn? I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, Micki. Mort and I can handle anything you got.”
Micki looked at Mort. “How do you put up with this?”
“He only weirds out around you, Mack.” Mort patted his friend’s shoulder. “Most time we can take him out in public. What did you find?”
“Again,” she said. “Pretty typical stuff for someone in Buchner’s position. Academic searches. Links to electronic and audio sites. He does his banking, such as it is, online. Buys his parents gifts over the internet and has them shipped directly.”
De Villa nodded his head. “Saves a lot of hassle. I’m a no hassle guy myself.”
Micki ignored him. “Buchner had Mapquest on his Favorites list. That’s where it got intriguing.”
“How so?” Mort asked.
“Buchner got to the university nearly two years ago. Back then he called for directions around town. Typical newcomer stuff. He must have made himself comfortable because there’s no maps requested for the past fifteen months. Until the last few weeks. Then there’s a little flurry of activity.”
Mort felt something kick inside him. “I’m all ears, Mack.”
“One’s to an idle warehouse down on the pier. I checked. Old import-export business locked up until the dead owner’s estate gets settled. I checked it out and Buchner has no ties to the deceased.”
